Cheryl Carpenter also denied racial profiling was a factor in the killing, for which she represented Wafer, 55, in a Detroit circuit court. In August, Wafer was convicted of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the death of 19-year-old Renisha McBride, who showed up on Wafer’s porch after crashing her car in the early hours of Nov. 2, 2013.

Wafer shot McBride in the head with a shotgun through his locked screen door after she banged on the doors and windows of his house, severely intoxicated. His attorneys described the shooting as self-defense motivated by fear, while the prosecution portrayed McBride as a helpless woman in need of assistance.

The case received national scrutiny as some questioned the role of race in the shooting; McBride was often linked to Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black 17-year-old who was shot to death in Florida by self-appointed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, and whose death became a rallying point for activists.